Dove of the Mourning
by roseperpetual
Summary: This is what her happy, vivacious family has become. Susan copes with the aftermath of The Last Battle.


Disclaimer: If I owned Narnia, the Last Battle would have ended differently.

**Dove of the Mourning**

A beautiful, dark haired woman sits on the grass in a solemn graveyard without even wearing lipstick, blankly staring at six bleak grey gravestones in a row. They are well tended, decorated with bright flowers, and stones not yet worn by the weather. All have 1949 as their death date.

This is what her happy, vivacious family has become.

--

There is no father to give her away at the altar, no sister who cheers up even the saddest person in the room, no brothers to laugh and tell her "stop being an idiot, Su, it doesn't suit you." Her first Christmas alone she spends silently sobbing, because Peter couldn't lift Lucy up to put the star on the tree she didn't bother buying, though they had stopped doing that years ago, and Mother couldn't cook her delicious turkey for Christmas dinner. Edmund couldn't steal Peter's books, Father wouldn't tell the same stories he said every year, and a thousand other mundane things that she never noticed until they were gone.

Which god had she made so upset that he snatched every last one away from her at once? Surely she couldn't have been too bad.

Susan stops being what her family called silly after that day. She still attends parties and wears pearls, nylons and lipstick, but it's rather lost its luster. At parties now, people stare at her with those quiet, pitying looks. When she turns away, they whisper, "Poor girl, lost her family in a train crash, how tragic," shaking their heads sympathetically and thinking she can't hear them. She just cannot take it any more.

Lucy never approved anyway, preferring the simple joys like sunshine to pearls and dances. Her sister wondered why Susan never felt the same.

--

She misses the made up fantasy land- "a flight of fancy," she called it disdainfully, what a fool she was- that Peter, Edmund and Lucy used to talk about constantly. Susan played those games too when she was young, being the solitary one who outgrew it. They were kings and queens, and she remembers glorious dresses and diamonds, suitors and lions. Susan was the peaceful, cautious queen with hundreds of marriage offers. Narnia was a beautiful land. They saved it from a century of icy winter once from a White Witch and Edmund's loathed Turkish Delight ever since, she recalls after with the blurred memories of an event that happened a very long time ago. What vivid imaginations they had.

Then she thinks, Narnia is what killed them all, because of course they were meeting on that day to try and get in their imaginary land. Susan hates it once more. Maybe if they never conceived it at all, they would still live.

Oh, but what she wouldn't give to have Peter and Edmund and Lucy surround her, talking about their Narnia again!

--

When she looks through the belongings of Peter and Edmund, particularly Edmund, she discovers boxes upon boxes of thick books. They ranged in subjects such as medieval history, classic novels, European history, philosophy, law and countless others, many being thick university textbooks. Susan was never a good scholar, preferring to spend her time at school to make friends. It helped her forget about- something.

Eventually she chooses to study at university after finding many quite interesting, but really she devours them as a last connection to her two dead brothers

--

They spoke of a lion named Aslan with particular reverence, treating him like some godlike figure. Of course Narnia had to have a god. Where would it be without one? It scared her a bit, though, with how often they treated Aslan as if he was real.

Really, she thinks, _Aslan _is what murdered them. That thief lion snatched away her whole family, along with poor Eustace, Jill, Polly and Professor Kirke. Susan's sure that cruel Aslan never had to plan his family's funeral or console the hysterical Aunt Alberta, Uncle Harold and Poles. Aslan never had to watch the people he cared most in the world be buried in the hard ground, not to resurface again. And Aslan not once had to go to a train station shaking with painful fear and grief to identify the bloodily battered bodies of those he loved.

Mother and Father didn't know about their imaginary Aslan. Why must they be dragged into the mess for the crime of being in the wrong place at the wrong time?

Susan believes that it wasn't Narnia but the nonexistent Aslan who took them all and left her behind.

--

She leans back on the graveyard's grass staring up into the light (Lucy was right, she realizes too late), eyes red with tears of mourning, and wonder if they miss her. Perhaps they are too happy to care.


End file.
